Wednesday, January 2, 2013

I had been busy celebrating christmas with my family. Which is the reason why my christmas post is really late. But I just felt weird posting about new year without posting about christmas. I hope all of you had a blast too.

Oh and I discovered something wonderful this time around: I actually love giving gifts more than I love receiving them. I had the best time watching my family unwrap their presents. Plus they loved what I have chosen to give to them.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

As I do not really like to have any new
years resolutions I figured I could also just choose a word for the year
that I will try to keep in mind and that I will try to incooporate
into my daily life.

And after some thinking I decided that my word
for 2013 would be hospitality.

Since living in a „new city“ (been
actually living here for 3 years already), a 5 hour train ride away
from my home town, my family and my old friends making new friends
had become a big deal in my life.

Plus I'm rather picky concerning
friends.

But with the discovery of the Kinfolk
magazine I suddenly became inspired to really take this matter into
my own hands.

The Kinfolk magazine declares itself as
a growing community of artists

with a shared interest in small
gatherings.

„We recognize that there is something
about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year
holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relationships and energizes
us. We have come together to create Kinfolk as our collaborative way
of advocating the natural approach to entertaining that we love.

Every element of Kinfolk—the
features, photography, and general aesthetics—are consistent with
the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and
less contrived. Kinfolk is the marriage of our appreciation for art
and design and our love for spending time with family and friends. “

- manifesto from their website
www.kinfolkmag.com

This wonderful outlet of creativity
functions as a source of inspiration to those who long to spend
afternoons with friends playing card games, having whimsical little
get-togethers on a porch and to those who just never dared to take
the first step and introduce themselves to their neighbors.

Of course, I immediately ordered all
the volumes I could get a hand on. So far I received a copy of Volume
6, no. 5 is on the way. Flicking through my copy I already got so
much out of it.

Especially one story spoke to me.

A story of a woman,
new in town and living in an apartment complex.

She had some problems
with making new friends (I guess she was a rather introverted –
just like me) and as she finally got over it she discovered the
loveliest way to get in to touch with her neighbors.

She left them
little thoughtful presents in front of their entrance door.

And
quickly after that she found herself engaged in some wonderful new friendships
and spent mornings having breakfast at their neighbors apartment and
felt like she finally was able to take root.

This year I want to take the inspiration behind the
Kinfolk Magazine and its stories and live with this one
word in mind: „hospitality“. I want to create room for having
small gatherings. I want to have a place where people want to go. I
partly think I already do have such a place actually ;) but I'm afraid most
people we've invited feel like they can't just stop by and maybe have
a cup of tea or two if they feel like it. I want to chance that. I
want my friends to know they can come over. I want to create memories
for and with them in my own four walls or perhaps even somewhere in
the woods in a cabin or on a lake by a bonfire (yeah, I know –
these are pretty idealistic, romantic and naive thoughts – but let
a girl dream, won't you?)

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Seriousely, how
much Christmas food is there? Gingerbread cookies (pictured above),
stuffed goose and dumplings (also pictured above), chocolate, cake –
either made at home, ate at dinner somewhere, found on a Christmas
market. It's even partly the reason why I didn't post anything in a
while. I just figured I can't just only post food all the time –
because, frankly, that's nearly the only thing I've been taking
pictures of as of lately. And right now I'm realizing what a stupid
thought that was – too much food in a post? Is there ever too much
yumminess in pictures? No. ;)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Everytime I visit my
grandparents there are cute kitties running around and if there
aren't any to find their sweet mummy bear cat usually hides them in a
barn or on an attic. And usually when I see one of them peaking round
the corner I grab one or two and put them in my sweater. It's like I
can't stop squishing and cuddling with them. Or I just take way too
many pictures of those furry fuzzy babies.